WRITING TASK ACTIVITIES IN DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL Jurnal Ilmiah Edu Research Vol. 5 No. 1 Juni 2016 59 WRITING TASK ACTIVITIES IN DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL Rivi Antoni 1) 1 Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan Universitas Pasir Pengaraian; e-mail: antoni.rivi888@gmail.com ABSTRACT This article is concerned with the study of applying writing task activities to students’ writing skill in developing good paragraphs at class II/A English Department in FKIP University of PasirPengaraian 20152016. The aspects explored in the study covered activities done by the lecturer in facilitating students’ need of the writing knowledge and skill . The research employed the action research design and the instruments used in collecting the data were a set of tests, observation sheet, field- note and interview.The data analysis covered preparation and data implementation. The findings showed that thethe use of writing task activities could better improve students’ writing skill in developing good paragraphs. The finding also found some factors that contributed to the better improvement, namely the selection of topics to be developed, the rule of peer and group discussion and the support of the writing lecturer in the instruction. Keywords: Writing task activities, Writing skill INTRODUCTION Writing is one of the important skills in language learning including English as a foreign language. Writing skill is becoming increasingly important in global community particularly in education either as a second or in a foreign language learning (Weigle, 2002; Foong, 1999; Sokolik, 2003). Having a good skill in writing helps students to share their ideas, to inform others about their thought, andto learn actively in particular in written form (Haitson, 1986; Angelo, 1989; Hyland, 2003; Tarigan, 2005). The importance of writing in learning English has caused the government arranged the curriculum of the skill in various levels of education, from secondary schools to university (Solikah, 2015). In the Indonesian qualification framework-based curri- culum, language learnersare expected to be able to express their ideas in written form in various kinds of writing products.Most of the language learners learn writing skill in various levels, started from the basic level up to the highest level such as academic writing concerned on the writing thesis activities. Based on the researcher’s experience as a lecturer of the first basic writing subject about writing paragraphs,he had trouble in facilitating the students to be able to write well. The earlier observation of the researcher concluded that the students lack of writing activities especially in developing the good paragraph. This article reports the result of a study on the use of writing task activities to develop students’ writing skill of a good paragraph at English education department in University of Pasir Pengaraian. Harmer (2008) points out two types of feedback in writing activities, namely oral feedback and written feedback. Writing task is the one use in writing feedback. Writing tasks are importantto give all learners opportunities to perform their abilities. In addition, Harmer (2004) proposes thatwriting process has at least four steps: Pre-writing, Drafting, Revising and Editing, includes the stages